Dr. Becky Kennedy

Now, so many of us women, this is really important because this is where the empathy piece comes in.

One of the ways we really learned we were valuable as kids, what our role was, and therefore how to adapt and survive was to distance ourselves as much as possible from anything we might need internally and instead become complete experts at our external environment and notice what everyone around us needs.

So what I always tell moms especially is, okay, I know we're going to work on this rage or reactivity thing.

We're totally going to make progress on that.

It actually starts by understanding why ignoring your anger was actually really adaptive.

We have to thank an internal process.

It must have been adaptive for 18 years of your life.

Yes.

For you to distance yourself from anything you might need for yourself.

That's actually, I think, what it means.

I'm going to be a good girl.

She's such a good girl.

I really think it means she has become expert at completely ignoring anything she might want for herself and instead becoming completely attuned to what everyone wants from her.

I gaze out exclusively and gazing in was associated with danger.

Well, fast forward to being a mom.

We don't just reverse processes immediately that used to be adaptive and were put in place for our survival.

So actually understanding that from a place of almost gratitude for the past is actually the first step to making a productive change.

So look, I don't want to distill this down to something overly simple because I think it doesn't do justice to, you know, a little bit of a longer process, right?

And I'm all for practical, at least first steps, even if it's not final steps.

I'll take it.